Team eBoost

October 26, 2009

Some exciting news we’ve been incubating in the past couple of
months – we went live with our brand new website a while ago and we got a brand
new blog to go along with it!Well, not
really new as we’re still the cross-functional, entrepreneurial, bottom-line oriented, and strategic
minded folk you know and love.But we’re
at a new address and we have our two newest Associates, Marko “CroCop” Nikolic
and Kurt “Dirty Jerze” Kaufer as the writers.As our company celebrates our four year anniversary, we thought it’d be
great to have the perspective of these new additions.

June 28, 2009

Friday marked the last day for a while for eBoost Consultant Garret Akerson
who is taking a six-month leave of absence to travel Ecuador with his lovely
wife Deanne.There is no overstating how
much we will miss Geakerson (this is his more preferred moniker.We never asked him but he didn’t seem to mind).Sure we will have him back better than ever
come January 2010 but his absence leaves a gaping hole in the culture of eBoost
Consulting.Geakerson is more than just
a man.Geakerson is a way of life.Periodically,we will be posting photos of Garret to tide the readership over.

There are undoubtedly many moments that built his legend.Like the time that CEO of that company (who
was a super-alienating figure to his employees) threw his assistant through the
conference room wall in a meeting and directed to Garret “I hired you to find
the true business problem.So what’s the
problem?!?!”Garret took a sip of his
water, placed it down and calmly said, “You want to know the problem?You, sir, are the problem. Action Item to Follow-Up On: Stop being the problem.”That CEO cited that moment as the turning
point of his career and the company has ruled its business category ever
since.The amazing thing is that the CEO
wasn’t even the problem.Garret just
read about Marvin Bower doing the same thing and always wanted to try it
out.

Garret is a trailblazer.

There’s also that time that Garret took one of his interns
on a camping trip to build their relationship.Garret and the intern ventured deep into a foreboding forest when a
grizzly bear made a beeline to the intern.Garret took a sip of his water, placed it down and calmly killed the
bear so that it would not inflict any damage to his intern.That wasn’t even the amazing part.What’s amazing is that Garret felt so much
compassion for the bear (Garret is a vegetarian and an animal-lover), that he
brought the bear back to life and nursed it back to health. The bear now adopts a raw-vegan diet.

Garret is a miracle worker.

There’s also that time that Garret was on an uncanny roll in
predicting fashion trends.I distinctly
remember (or vaguely remember, I can’t remember) Garret was at The Pod and
everyone was discussing the client-value of a new software, and when we asked
him what his assessment was, Garret took a sip of his water, placed it down,
and said, “Flannel is coming back.”The
next day, flannel became all the rage in street fashion and Abercrombie released
a press issue noting flannel would be the central point of its upcoming spring
line.A week later, Garret foresaw a
similar retro comeback with denim-on-denim…one day before Kanye West debuted
his denim-on-denim look on the fashion streets of Paris.As you can see, the guy was on a roll.So it was to no one’s surprise, if consternation, that Garret portended
the comeback of the mullet in one of his Client Services meetings with
Micha.Micha walked in next day with a
new mullet haircut.Garret took a sip of his water, placed it down, and smiled.

Garret is a jokester.

Yes, we will sorely miss Garret in the next six months.Please take a moment to drop him good luck in
the comments section and to post your own favorite Garret moments (true or
not).

Determining the connection between the external and the
internal. This is the art of business acumen: link an insightful
assessment of the external business landscape with the keen awareness of how
money can be made – and then executing the strategy to deliver the desired
results. The building blocks are simple but mastering how they intertwine
in each setting demands intense mental activity and skill.

20/20 Foresight –
External Context

Identifying the external context requires a quick, decisive
mental modeling of the big picture. This skill takes plenty of
practice. The essence of this skill is to find patterns, rhythms, from
among a wide variety of factors and posit the assumptions that would converge
them. A simple way is to begin with a list of six questions:

What is happening in the world today?

What does it mean for others?

What does it mean for us?

What would have to happen first (for the results
we want to occur)?

What do we have to do to play a role?

What do we do next?

The answer doesn’t exist in these answers. The questions
merely help executives assess the validity of the company’s moneymaking
approach. This is a fluid process, and almost entirely qualitative.
Assuming this iterative routine encourages executives to transcend old rules of
thumb deeply etched in their DNA – i.e. quantitative data, deliverables – and
means giving up on the habitual reliance on precedent historical data.
Historical data reflects linear change, rather than continuous movement which
is the essence of business maneuvers. One big trend is achieved through a
million small ones.

Learning to see the business landscape with 20/20
observation depends on the rigor and discipline applied to the entire process
of a) envisioning the changes b) deducing the actions and c) implementing the
plan.

20/20 Insight –
Internal Context

The ability to simplify complexity is vital to the success
and sanity of business leaders. We live in a world with unlimited data,
unlimited thoughts, and constricted time. The line between the successful
and sane strategists vs unsuccessful and stressed out strategists comes in the
ability to focus on the basics of moneymaking of a company. Successful
marketing strategists know how to break the most complex business situations
down to the fundamentals.

Here are the basics:

Cash – this is a no brainer.Understanding how much cash the business
generates and how much cash it consumes is critical.

Margin -margin is tricky.Typically, when
a client mentions margin or bottom line, what they are referring to is the net
profit margin – the money the company earns after paying all expenses, interest
and taxes.Gross margin is a different
story if not more insightful of shifts in the business.Gross margin is the different between a
product’s selling price and the cost to make the product (i.e. “cost of goods”)
which is expressed as a percent of the selling price.How changes outside or inside you business affect
gross margin is key.This could signify
changes that need to be made in either the supply chain, value chain or
both.

Velocity – velocity refers to the speed that
revenue turns over for each dollar of inventory.For instance, if you have$10 million in inventory for the year and
revenues of $20 million, then your inventory velocity is 2.This describes how fast you’re moving raw materials
to production to getting them on the shelf for customers.For B2B companies like ourselves, you can
track velocity by how much revenue is generated per hour of human capital.

Return on assets (ROA) – margin multiplied by velocity
equals return on assets.This is
probably one of the best indicators of a healthy business.Think of this as top of the list in a
diagnostic exam.If your return is lower
than cost of capital, your business is in no-man’s land.Increasing your return on assets can be done
using the math – increase velocity and/or increase margin.

Growth – there is a distinction between good
growth and bad growth.Bad growth
happens when your revenues go up while eroding ROA, customer equity – the
health indicators of a business.Good
growth typically happens organically, where the integrity of the ROA and
customer equity are increased through diligence in consistently iterating the
business model and its building blocks.The Net Promoter Score is a great performance metric in this game of
good growth.

A full perspective is necessary to unclog bottlenecks in our
thought process.As a complete marketing
strategist, you must have 20/20 foresight into the external context and 20/20
insight into the internal operating of the business, whether your own or your
clients.

Next, I will speak on what is step where most miss
the leap to becoming a complete marketing strategist – Functions Knowledge.

May 29, 2009

The big picture.Many
take this into consideration when talking about business – you often overhear
consultants or marketing professionals urge their team/boss/client to “take a
step back and look at the big picture” but rarely do people take the big
picture into consideration in professional development.Big mistake!Without seeing the big picture in your development (as a marketing
strategist) or inyour talent pool (as
an employer developing top marketing personnel), you are severely limiting your
work capacity, work capabilities, and ability to discover your best work
potential.Perhaps more insidious is
that you will lessen your leadership impact and decrease your company’s chances
to achieve the big picture that you urged them to see in the first place!

The foundation of the eBC Pyramid is Business Acumen.Understand what key drivers that make up your
business model.Many people mistake this
for a template business plan and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an
MBA education without ever learning how to put the pieces of the puzzle
together in a simple language.Essentially,
the business model comes from answering two questions: 1) What customer need is
being met? 2) How does your company make
money?As a complete marketing
strategist, you can’t perform to your accountabilities if there are deficient
components in the business that must be brought up first.Developing a keen business acumen will allow
you to set the proper expectations for your company.

Functions Knowledge – The biggest deficiency in talent
development exists here.Have you ever
witnessed a meeting between the CFO, CMO, COO, CTO, C(insert letter here)O?It’s akin to putting a Brazilian who
only speaks Portuguese, a Chinese person who only speaks Chinese, a French
person who only speaks French, and an Aussie who only speaks rugby, alone in
the same room.Communication is limited
to awkward body language, makeshift sign language, and ineffective gesturing
that can only be described as “pointing-to-things”.Hijinks ensue.Good for a sitcom, sure.Good for business, not so much.To be a complete marketing strategist, you
must become fluent in the functional languages. This requires an understanding of the key
metrics that the functional lines are evaluated on and also an empathy for the accountabilities
and responsibilities of the functional heads (CFO, COO, CTO, et al).A
complete marketing strategist is a change agent and change starts with proper
communication.

Marketing Fundamentals – When someone asks me what they
should be reading, I reply with Principles
of Marketing by Dr. Philip Kotler.This is my honest answer and when it comes to the moment of facing the reality
that this is a textbook that exceeds 1000 pages, most people (99% of the people
who asked me this question, I’d estimate) reply with “Can you recommend
something I can pick up at Borders?” I
typically don’t even bother offering this recommendation anymore because most
want a short, enjoyable book that they can read over a weekend.But a short, enjoyable book isn't what they need. Sure, the book was written before I was born,
but it’s timeless in the sense that fundamentals are timeless.In basketball, the fundamentals of dribbling –
head up, weight balanced over hips, ball on fingertips – haven’t changed from
Cousy to Lebron.In marketing, the
fundamentals – segmentation, targeting, positioning – haven’t either from
Kotler to Mikailian.Learn them properly so
you can maximize the next level.

Marketing Strategy – I haven’t run into any studies on this
but I’d surmise that the best marketing strategists would be exceptional chess
players.Not saying that you have to
become the Bobby Fischer of marketing (thereby making you eccentric and unattractive
to 90% of the opposite sex) but marketing strategy is a complete chess
match.On the other end of the table
sits your competition’s marketing strategist.Be too reliant on one move and you become too predictable.Be too risk-averse or risk-favorable and you may
open your competitors to taking you out with an early attack or waiting you out
and taking your market when you have no more ponds.I LOVE THIS GAME!

There are ebbs and flows to every strategic
reality.Though a paper deliverable is a
good start, more often than not, you’ll have to remain agile to adapt to the
fluidity of the match.There are
short-run moves (ex: promotions) and long-run moves (ex: advertising).Understanding
the business engine, functional strategies and proper marketing fundamentals
allows you to be creative and put it all together.Putting
it together to get your result (i.e. dominate the competition by capturing the
affection of the customers with minimal loss to your own company) is the game you
have to love to truly “get” strategy.Did I mention I freakin' LOVE this game? Can I get next?

Tactics – I won’t belabor this for now.Facebook, Twitter, email marketing, SEO,
PPC.These exist here as do most
purported "marketing strategists/consultants" who we appreciate, but really, they are "marketing specialists".Please don’t
get me wrong!We are addicted to new
trends and new technologies.New trends
and new technologies give us more options to choose from, more players to play
with, when executing marketing strategy for the business/client we're serving.After all, the customers are driving these
trends and technologies and you’ll need to pay close attention to the pulse of
your environment.But it’s a full understanding the
why and how of these tactics that transform a "marketing specialist" to a "complete
marketing strategist".

The pyramid above displays the basic building blocks that we
use to make a complete marketing leader.That is, someone who is strategic, cross-functional, intelligent and
creative.Whomever comes to our company,
we assess them on how rigorously they’ve attacked the fundamentals and how
aggressively do they continue to work at the fundamentals.If you’re weak on one of these levels, the
pyramid falls apart.Nowadays, the space
is ripe with one-trick ponies.And there
are plenty of people with great tactical skill but if they don’t know how to
apply those tactics to the big picture, then what good are they?

But most people, particularly those of the Gen Y clan, don’t
want to deal with that.They’re looking
for instant gratification, the shortest route to promotion, to that next title.Perhaps they don’t learn segmentation
practices because they don’t like analytical work. Perhaps they don’t develop proper
communication with Operations or Finance because they rely on communicating
with marketing peers with similar communication skills.Perhaps this is you?Sure, you can get away with it for a while but
the deficiencies will catch up with you sooner or later.

It’s like they’re so focused on composing a masterpiece that
they never master the scales.And you
can’t do one without the other.The
minute you get away from fundamentals – whether its proper preparation,
thought-processes, or work ethic – the bottom falls out easily.

When I was at Whole Foods Market, everyone said I was being
held back.But I was taught the scales
there.I was taught the importance of fundamentals and how to apply them to individual cases and my own propensity to
be creative.The concept of being a
complete leader was heavily stressed and imposed.When I got to eBoost Consulting and applied
my learning to include new digital tools, I had a strong foundation to work
from.I knew the way to approach
learning and I developed a feel for what would be flashes-in-the-pan or solid
tools.It allows me to be decisive.It allows me to save time.

When you understand the building blocks, you begin to see
how the entire operation works.You know
what tools to use, which frameworks will click to bring out the best in your
team.

People are often surprised that I spend so much time on the
whiteboard in meetings when we made our name on being cutting-edge.They ask if we knew which frameworks, which
tools we were using.My answer is always
no.Tools change. But the fundamentals remain the same.I assess the distinct abilities and
personality traits of the personnel in the room because I am always confident
in my understanding of fundamentals and my ability to apply the fundamentals to
any canvas.Give me a $10,000 brainstorming
software or give me the back of the napkin.The results will be the same.

It comes down to a very simple saying: there is a right way
and a wrong way to do things.Peter
Drucker once noted that effectiveness comes before efficiency.Not the other way around.Get the fundamentals down to be effective and
then your level of efficiency and probability for success will raise.

More to come on The eBC Pyramid tomorrow.

-johnny

The above excerpt is adapted from the chapter “Fundamentals” from I Can’t Accept Not Trying: Michael Jordan
on the Pursuit of Excellence.

So this is what Nixon must've felt like when he tossed the victory signs up like they were going out of business. Bad analogy? Perhaps. I wasn't even born yet, and neither were any other eBoosters come to think of it. What was I talking about again? Oh. Right. eBoost Consulting being ranked as the #1 Marketing Firm to work for in the 10th Annual San Diego Business Journal Best Places to Work Awards!

If you missed our original post about eBoost Consulting being named as one of the top 50, pop this. And while you're at it, watch this video I cut up. I'll wait.

To say we were stoked about finding out we are top 10 in the small business category would be a severe understatement! A few other companies *cough* Nautilus *cough* said they would beat us. Therefore, our year of trash-talking begins now.

One word simply cannot describe our feeling towards this honor. So what do I do? I go around using the Flip Cam and ask everyone to give one word to describe it. I call this being "counterintuitive". That's Sun Tzu stuff. For the Geaker-maniacs out there, yes, Geaks is notably missing - likely saving a child (again) or doing pushups in the parking lot (again) or something. But I'm sure he'd say something like, "bad-action". Amber is also notably missing - likely doing work whilst getting in the zone to the New Kids On The Block station on Pandora. I'm sure she'd say, "lock-it-down!".

April 27, 2009

Last Friday, Karen Marchetti (or as we call her, "KMarch" - yes, everyone gets a nickname once indoctrinated in the eBoost Consulting Family) invited us to present at San Diego Software Industry Council on the topic of marketing on Facebook. Quite cleverly, we entitled it, "Marketing on Facebook | 5 Takeaway Lessons". This is an off-shoot of a presentation we use to drive home the topic when we train internal corporate marketing teams on leading, managing and executing on social media marketing initiatives.

Below is the slidedeck - it was featured on the SlideShare homepage this weekend and is currently being showcased on the Business & Mgmt page by their editorial team. It will remain there for next 16-20 hours.

Tweet to your Tweeps, peeps! =) And let us know your feedback. This is our first time posting any of our presentations on SlideShare - experimental. But if the feedback is there, then we'll post more. We've got dozens of these in the vault...otherwise known as our server.

-johnny

P.S. - special shout-out to SDSIC for inviting us again to speak. It's always a blast working with such a professional team that really takes care of its presenters/speakers. Karen, Jill, and the rest of the crew are amazing. If you are in the San Diego area and want to stay on top of their events, I highly encourage you to become a fan of SDSIC on Facebook.

P.P.S- big nod to Garr Reynolds, who inspired this presentation with his work posted on his blog, PresentationZen. Also, thanks to Nielsen and Forrester for the supporting datapoints.

April 07, 2009

True Story: in 2006, Micha, Nick and I were throwing the football around the office at 6760 University, talking big thoughts, thinking big talk. We came to the consensus that accolades are great and all, but the biggest award that we could ever strive for was to be considered as the BEST place to work in San Diego. To be considered the best among your team was the pinnacle of success for us and earlier last year, we set out to accomplish this goal in 2009.

"Congratulations! Out of all of the companies who participated in the San Diego Business Journal's Best Places to Work Awards, only 50 companies have qualified. We are pleased to announce your firm is one of the San Diego Business Journal's 50 Best Places to Work in San Diego and will be recognized at our upcoming event."

It goes on to read, "Hor d'oeuvres will be served and beverages will be available. Parking is complimentary." Needless to say, as people with a blog called BoostStrapping, we're feelin' the free. Who's with me?

To say we're stoked about this would be an understatement. We've set out to be a company made up of best friends who have fun, laugh and beat up on our clients' competitors. Thank you San Diego Business Journal. But really, more importantly, thank you to everyone who makes up the eBoost family. In no order: Katita Banana, Alli G, Killer Kill from Deville, Dee, Jen "Quick & Dirty", Nick "Rainmaker", E-Sauce, F-Bomb, Ambah, Geakerson, MC Lite, DJ Lokal, Torres, Tat, DJ E-Dobbs, Petar Pablo, AP, Early B, Neil "Hearts-a-Flutta" Dutta, CK1, Justin Credible, Kolb Stone, Steph Infection, Mini Micha, Doody, East Bay, TP, THE Jason Kirby, Beau-dacious, Ed-vard-son, Nicole, Special K, Marcel Marcel, Nickel, and Big Euro Sexy Micha. I have no qualms with saying, this award is because of us.

P.S. - Coincidentally, we will be out of office tomorrow on a team-building exercise in Julian. Alls we know is that there will be an obstacle course. The interns may or may not make it back... That wouldn't nullify our award, would it...?